


Miscellaneous Works: Short Stories That Tumbled From Tumblr

by FloraOne, Nari20



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Additional tags will be added, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Drag Queens, Established Relationship, Evil Endymion x Usagi, F/M, Kendy, Kendy x NQS, Kendy x Usagi, Oh my god they were zoommates, One-Sided Attraction, POV Outsider, Post-Stars, Random & Short, Some Dark nightmare shit in Oneiromancy, The drag one is in answer to a review, senshi AU, tags apply only individually, the first one is aged up obviously, zoommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23092132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloraOne/pseuds/FloraOne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nari20/pseuds/Nari20
Summary: This is an ongoing collection of tiny selected short stories originally posted on Tumblr that I ended up liking enough to preserve them. Unrelated and Random: So far, have a One-Sided-Reveal AU and Mamoru in Drag.Rating might change in the future.
Relationships: Chiba Mamoru/Tsukino Usagi
Comments: 61
Kudos: 145





	1. Recognition

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this is a collection of short randomness. I was looking for a short story I'd only posted on tumblr and got frustrated looking for it, and decided it was time to have them in one place. So these aren't new, more of an anthology (or a miscellany) of the Random, or at least the ones of them I still like lol.
> 
> This first one is a story I wrote for Advent. It has nothing to do with the time though and isn't festive at all, it was just something small I wrote for the occasion as a tiny gift for my readers! So here, have a tiny, unrelated-to-everything AU!
> 
> (These are T for now. Nothing more than mentioning body parts so far in all of these. I might yank up the rating at any time though if I ever write a random nsfw piece to add to here!)

* * *

Miscellaneous Works: Short Stories That Tumbled From Tumblr

Story 1: Recognition

* * *

It had recently gotten worse.

"Here you go," the barista said with a slight wink and somewhat of a flirty smile, and for a second there, her heart palpitated.

He had blue eyes. Blue, blue eyes.

Was it him?

"T-thanks," she'd stuttered out and grabbed her bamboo to-go cup a little tighter. But he'd already turned to the next customer, the next order in the stream of never-ending rush-hour bustle.

She let the stream of commuters carry her outside and towards the train station.

It was at the traffic light that she tensed again. The guy that stood next to her was tall. Black hair that fell a little into his eyes.

Was this her fate now?

Going through her daily life, asking herself if maybe _this_ stranger was the one whose tongue she had in her mouth quite regularly?

It was slowly driving her insane.

She'd talked about it with him last night. At least a little. At least as far as her heart had dared to.

It all felt so fucking fragile. As if one stray wrong word and admission would break it all apart.

It was after the latest attack, monster busted back into oblivion via pink magic, that she found herself sitting next to him on a roof top, feet dangling, watching Tokyo Tower and waiting for its lights to go out for the night because her heart was a traitor like that.

His gloved hand was sitting on the concrete right beside hers, pinkies moving, touching in that dance that both of them stubbornly pretended to ignore while neither of them had the courage to just take and hold that fucking hand.

It made her heart thunder and stutter and splinter apart. She wanted to rip that damn mask off his face so badly.

She was terrified this all would stop if she did.

"Do you ever wonder if we know each other?" she'd whispered into the night, towards the horizon because she was too scared to look at him while she uttered these traitorous words that meant too much and too little.

He threw her a look and she couldn't endure it - she turned her head with her heartbeat in her fingertips and faced his eyes.

They were searching. Questioning. Panicked and wide and hopeful and terrified and everything in between and what did it _mean_?

She licked her lips self-consciously. "Or even just... walk into each other?"

Her voice was breaking, was unsure and mournful and sad, and his eyes calmed down and reflected just that but he didn't speak, he still didn't speak.

And then that gloved hand no longer pretended to just accidently touch her. His hand wrapped strong and imploring around her own, covering her own white glove insistently, and she hated these gloves so much these days, almost more than that whole fuku and the magic it shrowded her in, and that stupid, stupid mask.

She wanted to touch his skin so badly.

And she did. He leaned in, fingers clutching at hers, and then his lips covered hers, prying hers open, and she squeaked a dying whimper into his mouth when his exquisite tongue brushed so familiarly, so deliciously back against hers.

It was a little deeper than usual. A little more desperate. Sadder.

He broke the kiss but didn't move far away, instead tipped his forehead against hers, pressing her tiara between them.

She could feel his words forming against her mouth. "Do you think you'd recognize me?" he asked, low and sad.

It made her heart thunder even harder. "I hope so," she whispered.

But he leaned back, even when she moved her face a little with him, and he smiled the saddest smile she'd ever seen.

But he kept holding her hand.

"I hope so, too," he'd said. And then added the most peculiar, "One day."

It had confused her so badly, for the rest of the night and well into the morning and now, still.

It was when her trusty old Toei Oedo line announced the next stop and she was momentarily disoriented, that she was ripped from her thoughts, and, startled, found familiar eyes right above her.

He stood right in front of her seat in the crowded train car, her knees almost touching him, his hand clutching the handrail above, a slow smile around his lips.

"What has you so distracted, Odango Atama?" Always with that little glint in his eye, that soft half-smile that was almost a smirk. Teasing her, always. So many years now.

She blushed brightly.

"Nothing, jerk."

But he just smiled.

It looked a little sad.

* * *


	2. Mamoru in Drag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what follows is my favorite of all my miscellaneous works and actually the very reason why I'm posting these here, now, because I love it with a passion.
> 
> The following was in answer to a guest reviewer who was quite outraged over my fic 'Would You Like To Date My Friend, Chiba Mamoru?'. Apparently, they took such offense in me mentioning drag queens in it that they felt compelled to write me a long review about how much I wasted their time and should not bring my worldviews into my writing.
> 
> So anyway, that's why I decided the world needed WAY more drag queens in Sailor Moon fanfiction and I'd written and posted this in like, an hour or two after I'd received the review.
> 
> So yeah, have some more Drag Queens… :D

* * *

Miscellaneous Works: Short Stories That Tumbled From Tumblr

Story 2: Mamoru in Drag

* * *

"Are we really sure this is... necessary?" Mamoru mumbled, eyeing the duct tape warily.

Usagi wasn't helping. She looked more unsure than he did. And frankly, that wasn't very reassuring given the fact that she was about to duct tape his newly shaven dick up his ass.

"Don't be such a baby," Minako said from behind the paravent. "You gotta look authentic!"

"Right," he sighed, spread his thighs apart a little wider with a flush, and nodded for Usagi to start.

Unsurprisingly, duct tape on your junk _hurt_. He winced immediately.

"Sorry, sorry, sorryyyy," she cried, but never stopped with the tape.

Yup. He was now pretty grateful Minako had insisted on that _full_ -body wax for him.

He closed his eyes and just let her do it, even when she knelt in front of him and looked at his junk and the tape as if it were the most complicated of all IKEA furniture she'd ever have to put together.

"How's this even supposed to…" she mumbled in frustration.

"He's supposed to look flat," came the very helpful remark from the other side of the paravent.

"Duh." Mamoru and Usagi rolled their eyes in perfect synchronization, before he winced again, hissing through his teeth.

"Sorryyyy!"

"Ok, so," Makoto's voice this time. "You're supposed to like, tuck them back up."

"Back up?!" Usagi said, eyeing his testicles warily.

Mamoru's eyebrows jumped to his hairline in spontaneous panic.

"Like, there's supposed to be this little pocket? Where they came from? You're supposed to shove them back in, or up, and the dick is supposed to go like, all the way back to the ass crack."

"Where are you reading this from?" he asked, trying to not sound panicked.

"WikiHow!"

Uh…

He looked down at his fiancée wide-eyed, who wasn't looking back much better.

Shaking his head though, he grabbed downstairs, deciding to take matters into his own hand after all (and quite literally), and subsequently tried to shove it all up himself - and actually, yeah… kind of? A pocket?

He nodded down towards her and yuppp, tape down there really, _really_ hurt.

He wasn't looking forward to taking that back off. Really, he wasn't.

What he didn't do for the mission…

"Right," Usagi announced, quite proudly. "He's flat now!"

A cheer from the other side of the paravent, and then a hipster slip thrown over the side of it that he quickly stepped into. And with that, he supposed his paravent privacy rights were over, because it was shoved away, and he was handed a pair of shiny see-through black tights and a black bra.

"Here's your boobs," Minako said with a wink, and handed him a pair of silicone pads.

He sighed long and hard, even when Usagi was already grabbing them from him and stuffing them into his bra.

"Is this really—" he tried again.

"Of course it's necessary!" Minako interrupted him, then motioned for him to sit on the stool before her vanity.

He really didn't like the look of that glue she held up.

"Sit!" she ordered.

He did, but eyed her suspiciously.

"Oh c'mon!" Minako groused. "Trust me a little! I got you!"

He sighed, and closed his eyes, and felt Minako attack his eyebrows with glue. To better camouflage them away with make-up, she later explained, and paint him new ones.

"Ok so," Ami said from the side of Minako's bed, detangling some cables to stick into her impromptu equipment. "Once you're inside, scout the perimeter. If you wear your mic and earpiece, I have you on monitor the whole time. Try to track anything even remotely suspicious."

"Right," he mumbled, eyes back open. Minako was dabbing his face in nude colored make-up and it felt like she was painting him a new one.

"Full contour?" Rei asked next to her.

"Of course!" she mumbled, took a new brush, a new color, and wiped at his cheekbones.

"We'll be in the audience the whole time," Ami continued. "The second you notice something that looks like the attack, or a portal, or a weapon, or anything, one of us transforms and will be right with you."

"A weapon?!" Usagi shrieked.

"And try to keep close to the other Queens, protect them. Try to take the hit for them if worst comes to worst."

"WHAT?!" Usagi bellowed.

But he nodded. "Right," he said, at the same time as Rei who rolled her eyes at Usagi and barked a, "Give him some credit, will you? He can take it!"

That was the whole reason they were doing this, after all. Someone had been threatening the local queer community for a while, and after 'only' hate speech in the mail, started making serious threats especially to the little drag theater they were trying to protect tonight. And since the last attack had been supernatural in nature, and this one was almost a sure bet, the local police had contacted the Senshi and asked for their assistance.

It had been Minako's idea of course. That their best shot was to have someone undercover in the show who tried to take the brunt of the attack.

Usagi had been first to volunteer - use the Luna Pen, turn herself into a Beautiful Drag Queen. Mamoru had been first to protest and volunteer as tribute in her stead.

He wasn't letting any more crazy people try and blow up his girlfriend.

Everyone had agreed (except Usagi.)

Minako was glueing fake eyelashes on him when Rei spoke up again, tapping her finger to her chin as she watched Minako work.

"We need a good drag name for you," she mumbled thoughtfully.

"Mamoko!" Usagi cried from her perch on the floor right beside his stool.

He smiled - the others rolled their eyes.

"That's not a drag name," Rei shot in her direction with that 'are you daft, again?' inflection to her voice, dismissing her.

"Princess Flower?" Makoto suggested. "Rosa Mask? Rosa Tux? Golden Thorne?"

"Domina Masque?" Ami threw in with a shrug, and Mamoru threw her an offended look.

"Ooooh!" Minako cried. "I like it! We gotta get you a mask!"

He sighed long and hard - but was tutted for it - Minako was working on his lips.

"Here, I got your butt!" Makoto said, holding up the newly finished spanks with foam hot-glued in it.

He sighed even harder.

It was when Minako was done with the make-up, and the girls had tucked him into the sparkly red and crazy short sequin dress and zipped him up, that he was starting to not recognize himself in the mirror anymore.

"Damn, girl," Makoto whistled. "What do you need these _legs_ for?! Why are you so skinny?"

He blushed immediately, looking down at himself.

Minako dabbed some powder to his cheeks, looking pleased, then pulled a nylon net over his head.

"You're really good at this," he mumbled thoughtfully.

"Thanks!" she beamed, then winked. "Finally some trust!"

"I wouldn't go so far," he chuckled.

She threw him a pointed look, but a smile was dancing over her lips, and she tucked all his hair into the net, then took a razor to his sideburns and the back of his neck. He didn't even stiffen anymore.

"Just think of me as your mother tonight!" she beamed.

Rei dramatically rolled her eyes. "Minako, you are not a Drag Queen. You don't get to be his drag mom."

Minako waved her off with a tsk, but flapped a long dark wig over his head.

When it was done, even he had to blink at his reflection.

It was… actually kind of good? The long dark hair suited him, the smokey eyes and contour kinda...too?

"You know," Minako commented. "You look a bit like Rei like this."

"You really, really do," Usagi hushed, quite breathlessly, quite wide-eyed, cheeks way too flushed, and he couldn't help but lift his eyebrows at her in the reflection of the mirror.

He really didn't know what to think when she blushed even _harder_ at that...

"Shoes!" Minako cried happily, interrupting that thought, and presented him with a pair of pretty much sky high transparent peep toes, with a red sole and… and… were those _roses_ in the platforms?! "I have your slippers, princess," she said with a smirk.

He looked at them as if she was waving a pair of guns at him.

"Are you expecting me to be able to _walk_ in that?" he asked incredulously.

She threw him a look of utter annoyance. "Just try, for god's sake. This isn't science."

And so he sighed again, but strapped himself into seven inch shoes with roses in them.

When he got up, Usagi's hand directly there to clutch his and help him up, he was surprised he could actually _somewhat_ stand on them?

"You know…" he said, surprised and looking down, "this isn't actually so bad?"

Minako beamed with pride.

"If I don't have to actually, you know, walk…?"

Another tsk and a dismissive wave of Minako's hand. "Just hang on to the pole. You'll be fine."

"A pole?!"

"Ahh, don't worry. Just swing around a little on it. Try to look sexy."

"WHAT?!"

"Like you wanna fuck the audience. Ya know? Look at them like you look at Usagi when she's yelling something obnoxious at you."

"MINAKO?!"

And so, about an hour later, mic in his fake cleavage and dick taped to his ass and looking like a Queen, he stood wobbling in front of an open stage door with a mission to fulfill.

"Let's do this then," he said with one last sigh.

"Yas Queen!" Makoto shouted amusedly, and shut up with a barely contained chuckle at his withering look.

"Showtime!" Minako cried ecstatically, and shoved him down the stage door. "Don't get killed!"

He sighed again, but got to it.

Minako pressed her fist to her heart. "I am so proud of my daughter," she beamed, wiping away a fake tear.

"You are NOT HIS MOTHER," Rei cried again in frustration.

And no one really commented on the fact that Usagi kind of really, _really_ seemed to like her fiancé in that get-up.

Eventually, he actually _kinda_ killed it? Before the homophobic monster attacked, of course, and blew it all to smithereens. But even then, Domina Masque looked like quite a stunner throwing those roses.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also my friends are all gold and Irritablevowel picked out Domina Masque's shoes that do exist in RL and also Usagi would Dig It, you can fight me on this lol.


	3. And They Were Zoommates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway it's 2020 and quarantine and Sooo, I reblogged this amazing prompt for zoommates on tumblr (it was about two people meeting on a zoom call and it turning into a 24/7 thing fairly quickly, in summary), and begged for it to happen, and then lunapress made it happen and MADE ME THE BEST FUCKING QUARANTINE DOUJINSHI EVER.
> 
> Anyway, I decided to keep this reciprocity thing going and now wrote this for Lunapress in return, obviously in hopes to bribe her for more zoommates comic. Pretty please?

* * *

Miscellaneous Works: Short Stories That Tumbled From Tumblr

Story 3: And They Were Zoommates

* * *

First to go was, as was honestly probably to be expected, her every last inhibition.

"Usagi," he'd snorted adorably, all side-eye to the inbuilt webcam of his screen as he tapped away, focused on his other screen. "Can't you at least _pretend_ you're paying attention?"

She snorted right back and lifted her Nintendo Switch a little higher. While he was still working at

8pm during a pandemic like a nerd, she had the very difficult decision to make whether to keep the Lost Woods Zelda theme she's created for her village or to switch to Trololo.

"Like how you pretend you don't just call me for my cat?" She raised an eyebrow above her Switch, smirking shamelessly, but didn't look away from her game.

And so she saw the answering eye roll only in the corner of her eye, really, and hoped it was affectionate. His sigh _sounded_ affectionate anyway, even through the tinny sound of her laptop.

She bit her lip, and knocked her elbow to the side because she really tried to throw that flutter in her chest. And then did get violently thrown from it and screeched a little, because her elbow had almost knocked her drink both over her laptop and his designs scattered across her tiny foldaway kitchen table. The designs he had mailed to her. Like in the actual mail. So she wouldn't have to go out and get her ass to Akiba in a pandemic just to buy new cartridges for her outdated printer.

By the time she whooshed out a breath in relief, he was smiling at her screen.

And her heart palpitated again, and this was all kind of silly. She didn't even know him. Had never seen him at work before they were thrown in this project together and met for it in this strange, strange, newly so routine way for the first time.

This was all strange. She didn't know why he kept calling. She was in Marketing. He didn't need her for the Design. Maybe he was really lonely?

And also really, really pretty.

She lifted her Switch a little higher as he continued to type.

"You work too much," she mumbled absentmindedly.

He shrugged.

She reached out blindly, stuck her blue pick in another little pino cube, and popped it in her mouth where it immediately melted on her tongue to the click-click-clickety-click of his fingers on his keyboard.

She probably should make more of an effort. He was cute. A little exasperated with her. Ten leagues out of hers. Maybe twenty. She should probably pretend to be a bit more… normal. Sophisticated. Maybe then she might have a shot.

But of course she wasn't. She'd tried for the first two weeks and here she sat, cookie crumbles and Animal Crossing, and he kept calling anyway. So, really, it kinda was his fault.

He must be really, really bored out of his mind to keep calling her.

"You could visit me in my village, you know?" she said as Isabelle sang Trololo back at her.

This time she looked just in time to catch the withering look he threw at her.

She grinned, threw him a wink, and he rolled his eyes again but swiveled around in his swively chair and looked at the screen fully again, that silly, silly virtual beach background behind him fraying a little at the edges of his bookcase.

"Speaking of your cat," Mamoru said with a playful little smile. "I haven't seen her today."

This time, the eye roll came from Usagi. And yet, wordlessly, she pushed her laptop closed halfway: so the camera would angle right into her lap. Right where her cat was softly purring in her sleep as loudly and rhythmically as the system fan in her laptop. The same way she had for most of the evening so far. Luna could be very sweet when she wanted.

"Oh, uh…" came his stutter through her speaker and she frowned. And when she popped the screen back up, he was… was that a blush?

She looked down at her lap, wondering what that was about… and almost wanted to facepalm.

Oh.

Right. No pants. Just her pink panties with the kisses print. Why _wouldn't_ she flash those at her colleague who she'd never ever seen in person?

Week 5. It took her five weeks to do something as embarrassing as that, at least.

So yeah, professionalism _had_ been thrown out the window a while ago. But he knew that. It was literally in her screen name today. Tsukino Usagi, No Pants.

His cheeks were red and he no longer looked at the screen. Instead, he was suddenly very, very focused on typing and looking at that other screen.

* * *

Where in the beginning they had set in the most sterile parts of their apartments, business clothes and straight spines and saying -san and thank you for your time a lot, by week 6, she took him with her into her bed.

His image on her screen, anyway - as she lay on her stomach and forced him to watch Terrace House with her while he still occasionally typed away, and at other times dropped the act altogether. She could see sweatpants there that one time and it felt a little like a victory.

That one time when he took the laptop into the kitchen with him as he prepared his way too fancy dinner and she ate her third ice cream cup, and watched him navigate around the place as she explained to him calmly who was dating who and who was also really into them.

Was this weird? This wasn't weird, right?

* * *

Staring at Luna long enough, in the beginning of this weird thing, Mamoru had been kind of convinced he once saved Luna from a truck when he was younger, but Usagi wasn't sure if he was shitting her or trying to flirt or whatnot.

She'd scrapped the flirting notion soon enough, though. Seven weeks in, Usagi knew him better than that after hours and hours of near-constant video chat.

He didn't seem like the flirting type. In fact, he was absolutely proper. Not at all as forward as some of the guys she usually talked to, and for a hot minute she wondered if he might be gay, and frowned at the way her stomach flopped to that.

He did tease her a lot. But unless he flirted like he was in second grade (and he was just way too pretty for that), she guessed she was probably not his type.

Either way, a few weeks in, he was kind of... the best thing that could have happened to her in this situation. Regardless of the fact he was dramatically, ridiculously nice to look at through that screen, he was also the novel toy in an endless sea of boring four walls, and at the same time groundingly, preciously calm in a this ambiguous new weird world that was both freaking her out and boring her to death.

" _Fine_ ," she sighed, and clicked on the documentary he'd picked out, scowling at his victorious, smug grin. Him in his single's apartment in Azabujuban, and her in hers, both in bed and counting down from three to click play at the same time, both on different ends of the same train station, so close and yet so far.

Had she ever run into him on the street and just not known? Had they been on the same train? They must have, right? Working at the same place in Ikebukuro, living so close together?

She really wished so hard she would have known him sooner. Wished so hard she'd had him all her life.

* * *

"You eat like a preschooler left home alone for too long," Mamoru scolded her and her supercup blueberry cheesecake as he moved so confidently and prettily around his kitchen once more.

"You just don't know what's good. This is the best ice cream in the world," she said, dug her spoon in the right way - the way she got ice cream, cookie crumbles, cheesecake and blueberry jelly on her spoon in exactly the right ratio, stuck it in her mouth exaggeratedly, and mmhhed about it way too much.

He scoffed and cut his vegetables.

"Besides," Usagi mumbled, and picked up her Switch again. "I can't cook."

She saw him look at her, but didn't look back. Only when he resumed his chopping did she turn her Switch around to the screen for him to see.

"Look," Usagi announced proudly. "I'm wearing your clothes!"

Mamoru frowned, all the confusion fluttering across that pretty, pretty face, and leaned closer to the screen with a furrowed brow to the backdrop of his steaming kitchen, only for his facial features to dissolve into a full body glower once he saw what he was supposed to see - and she dissolved into helpless giggles.

Because her avatar was wearing the ugly green jacket and purple pants combo he'd only worn once, four weeks into this, and she had not stopped teasing him about henceforth.

* * *

When she answered her call sniffling, he was all wide-eyed concern and soothing voice.

But this was a pandemic, and her mom's friend was in the hospital, and she couldn't go home to hug her Mama who was worried, and this was all really, really scary when she stopped to think about it, and today she'd stopped to think about it.

And she'd also gone into work to get all her work mail like she had to once per week, and no one was there but their secretary at the admissions desk, the whole usually so bustling building an absolute ghost town, and she'd now gotten so used to it and also, she was all out of supercup blueberry cheesecake and the supermarket she did her weekly shop at didn't have any.

And he listened while she cried for both the big and scary and the small and mundane things about this that felt so weirdly alike in level of tear-worthiness.

* * *

When her phone rang and she read his name, a day later, she was confused for a second. He'd never actually _called_ her outside of zoom.

She picked up on the third ring, and his voice carried like he was somewhere outdoors.

"Check your door," he said, and his voice was … so very sweet.

Wait, what?

"Just check it," he repeated with a small chuckle.

And so she padded along the hardwood floor with her phone tucked between her shoulder and chin, stepped down into her genkan and opened her door with a fluttering heart. For a brief, insane second thinking she would find him there.

He wasn't, of course. No one was.

But instead, there was a big plastic bag hanging from her doorknob.

She frowned, lifted it off of it, and gasped right into it.

It was filled to the brim with cups and cups of frozen supercup blueberry cheesecake.

"What?!" she screeched into her phone, shocked. Moved.

"I was doing my weekly shopping anyway," he said, almost sheepishly.

She carried it into the kitchen. But when she unpacked it, screeching into her phone, her heart jumped. Because it _wasn't_ only her favorite ice cream.

There were also two boxes of tupperware filled with homemade food. And a note on top with heating instructions written in the neatest script she'd ever laid eyes on. And it all clogged up her throat almost painfully.

What? _What_?

And yet, instead of thanking him profusely, instead of bursting into tears, she whispered,

"You were... You were here?"

It came out so oddly sad.

* * *

"Ok, how do I visit you?"

She started almost violently, staring wide-eyed at her screen when his video finally caught up and switched on, too.

And then she deflated when he held up a Nintendo Switch of his own.

 _Wait_.

"What?!" she screeched, hopping with her naked knees on her bed and lifting herself up as if she wanted to jump into her screen. "You actually bought one?!"

He shrugged, gave her that small, secretive, infuriatingly ambiguous smile.

"Yeah," Mamoru said, Nook Inc. already babbling from his screen. "You need to walk me through this."

* * *

"Is this weird?" she asked with her cheek resting in her folded arms, her eyes too close to the screen.

She didn't even pretend to want to do anything else tonight.

"Why should it be weird?" He was gazing right back at her. Maybe even the same way.

She wanted so badly to crawl through that screen.

* * *

She was the most honest and the most stupid when she was sleepy and on the phone in the dark in her bed.

"Mamo-chan…"

"Mhmmm?" He breathed back. Sleepy and rumbly and making her belly coil just thinking how he looked lying in his bed in the dark, his phone next to him with her voice, too.

"What if…"

Deep, deep, rhythmic breaths. Did he fall asleep?

"What if…" she dared anyway. "What if I like you?" she whispered. "Like really, really liked you."

And his breath stuttered and he didn't say anything, just breathed on, slow and deep, but she was suddenly sure he was awake.

* * *

It was more than two months and two weeks into this nightmare world when she got the dreaded call from the local branch of her public health department.

The one lone woman who manned the desk at their office building was infected. The one person she saw once per week. Who they all saw once per week. They all had to go and get tested.

The procedure itself felt so weirdly novel and routine at once. She stood in line at a small hut in front of Juuban General Hospital, right in front, plastic flaps and plexiglass screens. Someone in protective gear handed out swabs and she had to stand in front of one of the screens and two mirrors as she put it down, down, down her throat, another down her nose, a doctor watching through the screen if she did it right.

And then she put her mask back on, got a slip with an ID and the instructions when to check for results, and walked back, and wondered all the while if Mamoru might be anywhere near. He needed to get tested, too, after all.

* * *

She found out she tested negative two hours after he did.

He smiled big and bright into her screen and all the while her heart _hammered_.

Because… because…

It took her a little while to voice the thought.

"Hey…" she said, and licked her lips. She was trying so hard at nonchalance and knew she was failing spectacularly. "You don't have it," she said like a dummy.

"Yeah…?" he said with a small smile, the one that lifted higher on one side and his eyebrow right along. The one that said, 'Am I missing something or are you being dumb again?'

"I don't have it, either," she said slowly.

And slowly, so, so, slowly, judging by how his features slipped, he finally seemed to get what she was trying to hint at.

But he said nothing, just stared at her a little slack-jawed, and so she bit her lip and said it anyway.

"Do you… want to…" she started, voice trembling, "want to come over?"

* * *

Mamoru was at her door half an hour later and wearing something else than he did when she saw him on zoom - something _way_ more chic than sweatpants and a T-shirt. And he was smelling like fresh shower.

And it was so, so weird.

"Wow," she breathed like a dumbass instead of saying 'Hi'.

"What?" he said with a frown, and it shot through her.

Because this was his voice. This was him. Here. _Here_.

She swallowed. "I... didn't realise you were so tall," she said like an absolute weirdo.

But his lips crooked up, and he ran a hand through his hair like she'd seen him do a lot.

"I didn't realise you were so short."

She frowned. Frowned, frowned, frowned. Dug her hands into her cute sundress because obviously, she'd changed as well, and frowned as she watched him walk around her small apartment with his hands stuffed into his pockets and so, so mute.

They usually never ran out of anything to talk about. And yet now they couldn't seem to find the words, and so he moved, and moved, and moved. Looked at trinkets and photos and her unimpressive bookshelf full of shoujo manga, and never once into her eyes.

And yet her stupid heart was running away from her.

Her eyes zeroed in on his fingers as they brushed along her swiveling chair, at the way his long legs folded into it. In her space. It was only when Luna hopped into his lap that he barked out a laugh, as if he'd forgotten she existed, and met her eyes in surprised delight.

She grinned.

Here. He was here. Luna in his lap where she usually sat. Right there. His ridiculously long fingers carding through her cat's fur. He swiveled around in her chair, looked at her shelf that he only ever saw through his screen, right behind where he now sat, and seemed to realise the same.

And when she met his eyes, she stood way closer to him, and his eyes were much, much wider.

Luna meowed loudly in protest and jumped when he lurged from her chair. When his hands flew into Usagi's hair and cradled her face and his lips pretty much crashed into hers and she whimpered and melted at the spot.

And so did he, when she walked him slowly, slowly back to her bed and he collapsed on top of her, and she decided she wouldn't spend the rest of this quarantine alone, and she also would never ever again stop kissing this man.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go! Here's a tiny nugged of a quarantine fic. I hope you're all staying safe out there! I hope you like!


	4. His Bunny Mug

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a story I posted on tumblr like a month ago. It came to be because tamagooo on twitter posted this [AMAZING fanart](https://twitter.com/tmjg58842932/status/1294303205698879488?s=19) that included Mamoru in scrubs with a bunny mug that reads "usa" that MADE MY HEART MELT, and chatting about it with fandom friends, it grew into a prompt challenge.
> 
> I linked it, but if the link shouldn't work for whatever reason, you can also find the link on tumblr! (You can find it in my tag 'my-fics' but also search for her on twitter: her handle is -at- tmjg58842932 and she makes absolute amazing art!) 
> 
> ANYWAY this is unbeta-ed and not all that creative but here you go this is what I wrote for it!

* * *

Miscellaneous Works: Short Stories That Tumbled From Tumblr

Story 4: His Bunny Mug

* * *

When Rina first started her residency at Juuban General Hospital, she hadn't much taken note of many of the other residents. Most residents here came from Keio, she and a handful of others came from Waseda, and she'd learned along the way that college boys were super annoying and super not her thing most of the time and really didn't bother.

While she had worked her ass off in medical school, had worked so hard in the first place to even GET into medical school and pass the rigged higher bar in place to keep many women out, she'd been so deeply disappointed at the way so many guys in her classes were just… not. She had excelled at every step of the way and pushed at sexist walls that were made of steel. And yet, Waseda had been full of stuck up rich boys that slacked off and gotten where she'd fought so hard to be, and then felt scared of a woman who knew as much as they did or, god forbid, more.

It had been infuriating, and it had made Rina not want to date again.

So when she'd seen Chiba Mamoru drive into work in a flashy red foreign Alfa Romero two weeks into their residency, out of breath and with his hair terribly dishevelled as he rushed through the door just barely in time, she'd rolled her eyes and thought she knew all there was to know about him.

It wasn't until rounds half a year later that her view of him fundamentally changed.

Rina hated rounds. Not because she didn't know every answer the chief of medicine ever asked, but because he never asked _her_.

Usually, when the Waseda boys around her wouldn't know an answer, they'd try to talk their way out, say some very vague and always-accurate non-answer to save face and the Chief of Medicine would press his lips together and yet let it go.

And so, Chiba Mamoru's reaction surprised her so hard she almost physically recoiled.

"I don't know," he'd answered easily, confidently. And if that hadn't been shocking enough, he kept talking. "But I am sure Sato-san will know the answer, why don't you ask her?"

Her eyes blew so wide she lost control over her facial muscles when, for the first time, the Chief of Medicine's eyes landed on _her_ , and only after his searching gaze had roamed over the faces of quite a number of boys - boys who were all silently looking at her, too. (And…didn't the Chief of Medicine even _know her name?!_ )

She was so shocked it took her a moment to speak, and when she looked back at Chiba, his eyes were growing alarmed too, as if he suddenly got worried he'd accidently thrown her under the bus and not helped her after all, and that reaction was all the confirmation she needed.

Chiba Mamoru was helping her. He had been confident she knew this difficult answer.

"The lack of joint inflammation and abatement of both digital and abdominal pain in the patient speaks for a misdiagnosis. I suggest testing for fibromyalgia instead," she shot out once she finally got her bearings.

The room was completely silent after that.

But of course she was right. And she could answer every last follow-up question, even when he made it harder and harder, and the Chief of Medicine, in the end, looked impressed.

"Sato Rina, yes?" he asked to confirm, leafing through his charts.

He definitely knew her name after that.

And the way Chiba Mamoru smiled smugly afterwards - not at _her_ , but at the Chief of Medicine - left her even more perplexed than she'd already been.

It didn't let her go.

"Why'd you do it?" She asked him hours later when she found him in the break room, pulling a mug from the little compartment that read 'Chiba' and pouring his coffee.

He didn't react to her informal address, only to the sheer puzzlement in her words, and shrugged.

"You remind me of a friend of mine. She's a Todai med student. She's as brilliant as you," he said easily, and lifted his mug to his mouth. It was pink. There was a bunny on it, and the word 'Usa', and yet he'd clearly marked it as his in a way no one else here marked their things. It steamed.

"I think you both fight the same battles sometimes," he said with a kind expression, and Rina tried to collect her jaw from the floor.

She really couldn't believe herself when her mouth opened and she started to dig for information before her brain had the decency to consent to it.

"A friend…?" she asked, and then immediately blushed in a way she had not blushed since middle school.

But he didn't even notice. He just looked at his girly mug fondly and then he beamed.

His smile turned brilliant. Blinding. "One of my very best ones, yes."

He exuded a level of sheer happiness that was quite frankly almost overwhelming.

It only came to her later that night, as she walked home exhausted in her blue scrubs completely wrinkled, that it had been the first answer in six months of daily rounds he hadn't known to answer correctly.

And she'd watched him, then.

He was impeccably friendly and polite, and yet he seemed to slip through the seams of conversation among the staff most of the time. But he didn't seem to mind at all. He kept to himself, and yet he did not seem lonely in the least.

He was terribly good with kids. He knelt down to their level and smiled that blinding smile. He had a Sailor Moon key chain. Sometimes, there were roses on his socks. And every day he would over-use that pink mug as if he didn't get enough sleep, and clutch at it throughout the day when it got long and tiresome.

Small glimpses that were so endearing it puckered in her chest.

Until one day she had a patient with the most curious hairstyle and a smile even brighter and more trusting than that of Chiba Mamoru. Even when she was bleeding and in visible pain.

Tsukino Usagi.

Chiba Mamoru was one big breathless and dishevelled mess when he burst through the door where he wasn't supposed to be, completely out of it.

His hands were trembling in a way she'd never seen anyone tremble and yet still talk through it somewhat calmly when he begged her to be careful with this particular patient, and told her with shining, trusting eyes that flitted so very uncharacteristically agitated around the room that he wouldn't trust anyone with her but Rina.

It was a few months later that Rina had started dating again. Chiba Mamoru had proven to her that there were other boys out there than the Waseda boys she knew.

There were those that weren't scared of a woman with a brain, those that drank coffee out of pink cups with their girlfriend's name on it, and who lost all countenance when this girlfriend was in pain.

She wanted one of those.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway I think a Mamoru who met Tsukino Usagi when he was 17 and grew the rest of the way up with her would be a quietly happy person in the long run. She brought out all the good parts. Happy good parts people would be drawn to that are there because of her.
> 
> Also I really like all those Asanuma-like situations where an outsider is looking at our babies and slowly starts to get why they’re the OTP -shrug-
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this tiny little thing and that it made your day a little better and mwah!


	5. The King's New Clothes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is like, the most spontaneous collab in my personal fandom history lol. Nari20 is drawing a collection of SPECTACULAR collection of Mamoru Makeover art over on her [twitter](https://twitter.com/nari300620/status/1328336717913448448) (LIKE THERE'S MAMORU IN A [MANKINI](https://twitter.com/nari300620/status/1328764592869179392) AND MAMORU IN [TUXEDO MASK UNDERWEAR](https://twitter.com/nari300620/status/1329028352460681216)) and it's been sparking very amused Fashion Conversations for days now. Then there was this one colorful suit, and I was like, Imma Write It, and Nari was like, If You Write It Imma Draw it, and it was midnight, and an hour later give or take between us, this happened. You're welcome lol.
> 
> So here, have my personal Kendy Fashion headcanon, and I hope you enjoy, and for the LOVE OF GOD CHECK OUT NARI'S ART IT'S SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS LITTLE FIC.
> 
> (Anyway, I'm gifting this fic to Nari!)

* * *

Miscellaneous Works: Short Stories That Tumbled From Tumblr

Story 5: The King's New Clothes

* * *

Utopia had taken a surprising amount of time to adjust to, and no one had had a harder time with it than the new queen of the world.

Especially in the beginning, she'd bottled it up and painted a smile over it. But Mamoru - King Endymion now, or so his official royal name, and what the _fuck_ that would need some getting used to - had been with his wife for long enough to see the tenseness of her shoulders, know what it meant when she gripped his hand so tight.

She'd been terrified.

The leaders of the world intimidated her. Not because she was someone easily intimidated, but mostly because some of them tried very hard to do so.

She gritted her teeth through glassy eyes when another old, bald man in a bland, navy suit tried to talk down at her, and stood her ground.

But afterwards, she'd tremble in his arms in the hotel room in any capital city of the world and try to breathe in deeply through her nose. When she'd started whipping out notebooks asking him all sorts of vernacular intentionally thrown her way because she could not understand it, thinking she had to learn and asking him to tutor her even though they'd done it all on purpose, he got mad in a way he started shouting for the first time in his life outside of life and death situations.

Not at her, mind you.

But they were trying to bring down his wife, not even realising the luck they fucking had to have someone with her heart trying to make them be compassionate and humanitarian and good. Someone so unwaveringly pure, someone with her unfaltering integrity. Someone so easily finding the good in others and bringing it out.

But they'd just fucking have to learn.

He'd hired a personal translator for her then, first thing in the morning. One of what was to be one of many. Someone who'd take these terms fired at her in foreign languages and usually translated just as haughtily and arrogantly to her, and instead explain them without shrouding them in pomp and circumstance. 'Habituation' in the end, was only 'getting used to something over time', after all, for a good translator.

They might have tried to hit her at her flaws, but Mamoru was determined, at Neo Queen Serenity's side, to show off where she was better than any of these assholes combined. The world lacked love, not fancy words. Usagi had _him_ for the fancy words.

And so, even though it all began in endless work hours that tore at Usagi, in stuffy rooms half-way around the world at any point in the year, slowly, she grew into it. If Usagi was good at one thing, it was finding positivity and joy in all manner of circumstances, and this was no different.

The climate treaty negotiations in Brussels might have been mind-numbingly infuriating, but she'd snuck them out during lunch hour to a Belgian chocolate vendor nearby who'd been making paradise for the tongue for over 300 years in their little family run-store, and Usagi's eyes lit up like this had suddenly turned into the best fucking day. She might have to try and wrangle power-hungry men, but she could also buy a restored French carousel from 1872 and put it in her sitting room, and yes, she had. And yes, she rode it.

But even those worldly pleasures that made it all more bearable for someone who struggled with having to concentrate for a minimum 60 fucking hours a week most of the time, those pleasures that had the power to balance out the fact that Tsukino Usagi did not get to sleep in anymore at all, ever, were sometimes turned sour for her.

The second time he'd shouted outside life-and-death situations, he'd found her crying over a tabloid as she emptied hanger after hanger of extravagant dresses from her wardrobe.

One of those pleasures that made it all worthwhile for her? Fucking extravagant dresses. Even when Usagi was 14 and had only just learned she'd one day be fucking queen of the world, she'd started to look at couture differently. Started collecting moodboards and clippings. She'd been looking forward to _that_. A teenage girl's dream of the glamourous life of being Queen.

But now that she was, this life was more work than glamour. The only glamour she got was the one she made for herself. Like carousels in sitting rooms. Like Paolo Sebastian Autumn/Winter 2018 and George Chakra Autumn/Winter 2016 and Isabel Sanchis Spring/Summer 2020 and Ralph & Russo Spring/Summer 2017 and Dior Spring/Summer 1992.

The tabloid was horrid. 'Neo Queen Serenity: What a Little Girl Looks Like Who Mistakes Leadership for Playing Dress-Up. Is the Future in Good Hands?'

Underneath it, a spread of Usagi in her glittering, sparkling, over-the-top dresses. Everywhere from cutting ribbons at the newly minted Crystal Tokyo Center for Free Childcare to sitting in week-long conferences somewhere in New Brunswick.

Sometimes, he wasn't so sure if the world even deserved her.

He'd personally hung back every hanger into this wardrobe himself, cancelled their meetings for the day much to Ami-chan's organisational horrors, and took her shopping in disguise.

That day, something profound had changed.

"This one," Usagi had said with a flushed giggle. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes were dancing. And really, if it took playing dress up for her, no garment was ridiculous enough to not be worth it.

He stepped out the dressing room in the brightest floral-patterned shiny pastel suit the world had ever seen. Baby blue and pink roses over rococo gold embroidery to bright baby blue patent leather loafers. He looked like a chandelier had fallen into fresh paint and then rolled around in confetti. And his Queen _loved_ it.

"Well, then," he'd winked, and she'd giggled again. "Let's take five."

If they were going to make fun of her choice of clothes, he'd just have to top her game, Mamoru decided.

And really, it made so much fucking sense.

Back when he was a boy with a glimpse of his future, he'd always wondered how the hell THAT happened. And with that, he'd of course meant something quite specific, and not the fact he'd somehow made it on a throne.

A lavender colored tuxedo that had made him frown into the night for a long, long time. A lavender colored tuxedo that had yet not found its way into his possession. One he'd begun to doubt ever _would_.

Of course, Mamoru had always liked the more dramatic of clothes. So far, so unsurprising. His favorite attire was a tux and cape that he could flap like no other, after all, and then came a color-blocked puff sleeve shirt he'd worn until it fell apart. He'd always liked color. One didn't get married to Tsukino Usagi if they didn't adore a colorful world.

But _that_?

And yet the royal world they'd found in their future hadn't looked satin and lavender when they'd finally made it there. It _hadn't_ happened. It was navy suits and etui dresses with leaded hems to they wouldn't blow up, covered shoulders and skirts that absolutely had to be no smaller than knee-length, and he supposed it had made sense. After all, the Windsors didn't run around in see-through shift dresses and tiaras, either.

He'd even been a little relieved. He liked blending in. He'd told himself, when he first saw that lavender tux when he was fucking 18 and his mind was blown with too much information he should not have had, that he wasn't gonna do it. No matter what.

Now? Now it made _so much sense._ Really, he should have _known_. Of course, _this_ was what was gonna do it.

Someone criticize his wife? They gotta go through him.

If protecting his wife's happiness while she made the world a better place meant Lavender Suits and Capes, then this was what it'll take.

Now, he was gonna fucking do it. _Of course_ , he was.

So no, the Windors still wore unicolor, leaded costumes.

His wife wore skin-tight chiffon, silk and satin.

And he wore mermaid-colored sequined-dinner jackets. He wore heels with flamingo-patterned trousers, complete with a tuxedo stripe at each side. He wore shimmering, metallic athletic wear, skin-tight. He wore fake fur collars and thick embroidered velvet robes to black leather gloves. He owned a mankini. A hot pink leather jacket he wore over men's pastel evening wear. The green jacket was jealous somewhere in a closet. Maboroshi no fucking fashion sense.

Nobody ever wrote something offending about the _Queen's_ new clothes once he'd grooved himself in.

(Minako loved it perhaps most of all.)

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in the name of fashion, all the dresses (or their lines) I mentioned for NQS are ones Antigone2 has collected on her tumblr (idesofnovember) in the past because she has a good eye for NQS-couture lol and I shamefully included them here. All except one. One is an Easter Egg. I'm proud of you if you figure it out lol. And god, please, if someone wants to draw Kendy in more of his new wardrobe, holy shit please tag us.
> 
> AND, I'd love to hear from you, as always! Mwah!


	6. Oneiromancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tiny little ficlet written for Brownsugarheartattack!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a tiny little present for my friend, Brownsugarheartattack, in an impromptu ficlet exchange! (I CAN RECOMMEND THESE! SO QUICK AND SO SWEET! DO THEM MORE, PEOPLE! 10 of 10!)
> 
> Anyway. Love, your list read as follows: Heavy angst, Usagi and Kendy, Usagi and Evil!Endymion, confessions, identity reveals, pining and Usamamo. I tried to do something that encapsulates ALL of that, and wrap it into 1k words. I JUST SO failed at the 1k words lol, but I do hope you like it.
> 
> Anyway, remember when, in the end-ish of the break-up arc, Usagi shared Mamoru's nightmare? Let me make this a bit more atmospheric for you, here!
> 
> Oneiromancy = noun, from Greek. The practice of predicting the future through the interpretation of dreams.
> 
> As all of my shorty shorts, this isn't beta-ed, so please excuse me sounding like my own German self lol. Sugar, I hope you like this angsty-angst!

* * *

Oneiromancy

A ficlet written for Brownsugarheartattack

* * *

A crater black with her screams. Broken, leaded glass reflecting color like the eeriest kaleidoscope off of unnatural, greyest fog. A ripped wedding dress, hanging from her only in tatters.

Padding barefoot through someone else's nightmare wasn't the strangest thing she'd ever experienced, but _wow_ , how _weird_ was that?

Even weirder that she instinctively, directly knew whose it was. The bleeding colors in the grey like the grating sound of his voice when he told her he no longer loved her. A bruising hiss in her heart. She had no doubt whose nightmare she was invading, no. She just didn't know why, or how.

Barely visible through the thick fog, the black ground shone like a mirror. Broken glass crunched loud and wet beneath her bare feet, and yet she felt none of it. There was no pain in dreams.

At least not physical.

She found his reflection first, swimming in the shrouded black mirror all around her, and she jolted. The tuxedo blended in too well with the darkness, too familiar.

But the moment she did, his reflection broke like a spiderweb fissuring across the glass beneath her gaze, and her eyes ripped up to find his.

The fog cleared just enough to reveal him to her, but no more.

A thick, golden throne that tickled in the back of her mind. He sat in it as if he belonged in it, leaned back and comfortable. Arrogant.

One leg over the other, too elegant, too nonchalant, too beautiful. His mouth curved too much, smirking at her over his chin, black rose twirling in one hand.

She supposed she hadn't found Mamoru, after all.

"Are you looking for someone, little bunny?" his voice purred in a way it was all wrong, and yet all familiar.

She swallowed, but met his eyes steadily. Strongly.

"For you, yes," she said, and it echoed off the darkness, carrying her own voice back to her over and over again in a way it hadn't done with his.

With a flicker, he got up. One moment he was folding his body elegantly, the next he was an apparition directly in her face. Getting too close. (Not close enough, her traitor heart cried.)

She held her breath, but stood her ground, digging her feet against the smooth glass beneath her feet. She refused to be affected.

Which was hard, of course. It had always been hard. Back when he'd really been Endymion of the Dark Kingdom just as much as the memories of a life before that, when Endymion himself had been more reckless just the same and yet no one could know. And so, she held her breath and watched his too pretty face slant itself over hers, lips first. So close.

Above her, tapered fingers ghosted across her chin and up the apple of her cheek. Like tracing a tear in reverse.

He tilted his head.

"Hm," he hummed, and his dark, dark eyes bore insistent into hers, glinting a deep maroon in its midnight depths. "I really don't think so, my love."

A heartbeat, an exhale. And then his face twisted, and his hand wrapped strong and sharp around her throat.

She shook, terrified, even when she couldn't actually feel the press of his phantom hands against her skin. Fell just like one falls in dreams - a tug in her tummy, a jolt, but she didn't wake up. Something held her here, like it was not yet time to go. Like she had something left to learn, like something held her hostage.

Someone.

A blink, and Endymion was back in his throne, caged, one leg over the other, when her someone appeared behind her. Lavender fabric flapped softly against her bare leg as if he was real and not a dream, and Usagi shivered as he leaned in behind her, silk shifting against the length of her backside.

She shuddered, refused to look. "You're not Mamo-chan."

But Mamo-chan's soft, gentle baritone answered her. A trickle down her spine.

"I'm not, no."

Her breath stuttered when the fog fled like it was sucked away before her eyes. Endymion a smirking beast, his tuxedo shifting away to the armor of the Golden Kingdom. But as the fog cleared, what lay behind him was more startling. A sea of corpses by his feet, lying on the smooth black surface made from glass and mirror, reflecting dead eyes into the void.

Her senshi. Her mother, Queen Empress of the Silver Millenium. His Shitennou. A faceless, middle-aged couple she recognized too well from a dusty frame in Mamoru's shelf; his family. But it didn't stop. The fog receded but the horizon never came. Two ancient peoples fallen to their love, their shadows like an endless veil of death that trailed behind his throne.

Usagi refrained from crying out, her eyes swimming so much it made it hard to see.

"And he?" Her voice broke, nodding at Endymion. At his tilted head, at his intense, unblinking eyes that never left hers.

With a strike, another body collapsed fresh and cracking, directly at Endymion's feet.

Her.

Broken by the neck, wrapped in wire made of thorns and black roses, Sailor Moon's eyes devoid of life.

But it was not her. She was standing right here, barefoot in the shreds left of a white dress. (Yet, it was no longer a wedding dress at all, but fabric she knew from the whispers of a different life.)

"He," Mamo-chan's voice spoke too calmly, too soothingly, directly against the shell of her ear, a warm hand hesitant at the small of her back, "is Mamoru's deepest fear."

When she did turn - when she could no longer stand the stare of the dead - _their_ dead, Not-Mamoru's eyes were full of warm concern. A lavender tuxedo, a white mask covering his eyes that didn't do the trick for her anymore.

These were - absolutely, wholly, unmistakably - Mamoru's gentle eyes.

Her mouth popped open on its own volition. "Who are you?" she heard her own voice gasp.

He tilted his head just as Endymion had. And yet the same, familiar movement could not be more different. "Someone who doesn't belong here," he said.

She frowned, licked her lips, and lavender fabric shifted.

"Someone misunderstood," he said, and turned to the oh-so-still and gruesome scene in front of them.

But _this_ Mamoru, when she waited long enough, did not stay silent.

"Dreams are Mamoru's birthright," he told the dead, but Usagi refused to follow his gaze. "The power to predict the future through them, to connect through them, to _communicate_ through them… it flows in Mamoru's veins."

He found her eyes. Too much emotion. Too much regret. She recoiled under his strong stare.

"He should have understood."

A blink. He never turned, and yet with a flicker not unlike the static of a broken screen or a bad scene-cut, his body had shifted, his gaze back on black mirror and unseeing eyes.

"But there's too much already here," he said. "He couldn't."

She shifted. "What... What did he misunderstand?"

She hadn't even noticed she'd grabbed Not-Mamoru's hand. Her bare one against pristine white gloves. But he had.

His smile was soft but oh-so-tragic when he turned to her and brought her hand to his mouth.

She almost jolted when she felt his lips against her knuckles although she shouldn't have felt a thing here. Brushing warm and tingling across her too-alert skin, a current in her hand.

She flushed too hard, too strong.

"You ask me who I am." His lips moved against her hand, his grip gentle and yet desperate.

He didn't move away.

"But I'd rather you know who you are."

She froze. "... Who am I?"

With a shift of fabric, this man knelt. Went down on one knee for her. Her hand still hostage in his. His eyes too full of devotion.

He didn't look like he was supposed to kneel for anyone, and yet he did for her almost with worship.

He didn't speak the words. They swam as echoes in her head, popping like ancient, cackling stereo sound that was misaligned. Some far away, some too close, some from the left, some from nowhere at all, some directly in her head.

In Mamoru's gentle voice. And this time, she knew, she _knew_ it really _was_ Mamoru's—

 _My salvation - salvation- Light._ My savior. _My heart._

_My family. Salvation._

_My soul._

My love.

_My dream._

Another flicker; static on a screen, Not-Mamoru's hand on her cheeks, looming over her. Tracing her tears in reverse, leaning in.

"Wake up, Usako," he whispered against her eyes. "He needs you."

And this time, the jolt in her tummy did shake her awake. Wide-eyed in the darkness, Luna stirring beside her, shadows across her comforter, her heart a frightened hummingbird.

She'd been wrong. There _was_ pain in dreams. A lot of it. Locked and terrified and needing to be kissed away for at least a thousand years until it's gone.

She ripped her blanket from her body, Luna screeching awake as the cool air of night threatened to invade her bones and chase away the warmth of sleep.

She climbed through her window as Usagi and through his as Sailor Moon. Climbed into his bed and woke him up from a nightmare that had gone silent for too long to a tortured shudder of his sleep-warm lips.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, here's a tiny gift that I hope all of you enjoy too! I hope you like my explanation of this R-nightmares mess! Mwah!

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway I kinda love this little nugget, and maybe you do, too? Here it is preserved anyway.


End file.
